Lemming was the real victim

Columnist

It’s nearly the end of the week and Andrew Laming still has his job? Well, I guess drool sucking lackwits need representation too, and he seems well suited to air their views, retweeting his original shocker – “Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day's work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap?” – a day after seeding the clouds of a small but shrieky social media storm with his original bon mot.

A lot of people tagged the tweet as racist, but I think they were off target. It seems more tin eared and oafish than that, the wet little brainfart of a lazy mind, rather than the calculated incitement of a bigoted provocateur. One has no trouble imagining similar sentiments being voiced over snifters of brandy at one of the better clubs where gentlemen of the medical profession and the Opposition front bench gather to discuss the problem of the lower orders. Once upon a time it would have been Irish mobs tearing up Logan. This time it was Murris and Islanders.

Perhaps somebody had a word in The Lemming’s shell-like, however, because he did finally ‘clarify’ what he meant by the words: “Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day's work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap”. Apparently, if you squint really hard you can see that it actually means, “Working together to resolve these riots the priority. Training and a chance for jobs are key.”

We know that because The Lemming clarified the meaning of his contribution to the ongoing discourse at Logan by first reminding us with a well-timed retweet that the mobs tearing up the suburb may not have clocked on for a full days work, instead firing themselves up for a night of riotous assembly with a hard day’s looking for handouts down at Centrelink, before clarifying, “To clarify: Working together to resolve these riots the priority …”

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You can see why the inattentive punter, perhaps distracted by the Honorable Member’s rhetorical contribution to the small bloody conflict about which he would know precisely nothing, would fail to miss his actual intention, which wasn’t to inflame already inflamed passions, or to further entrench the out-group psychology of two marginalized communities. It was to further a discussion about training and employment policy.

In the end, when you think about it, The Lemming, maligned and misunderstood, was the real victim here. Damn those inconsiderate rioters for embarrassing him like that.

49 comments so far

Damn I missed this, other than a passing mention on a news broadcast on the radio while driving.

I must be following the wrong people on Twitter. I can tell you the issue of faecal transplants delivered through the nose is trending high in my tweets thanks to Ed Young.

Commenter

Barnesm

Location

Melbourne, 14 light minutes from Curiosity

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 8:49AM

no wonder i feel so stoopid at times; but it seems its not my fault...everyone else is incomprehensible

Commenter

insomniac

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 8:57AM

Spot on! I wish others in the media could hone in on the crap and call it for it what is when they see it. Someone like this moron is an a-political issue to be dealt with.

As my grand-dad used to say, "A Grub is a Grub, A Crook is a Crook, Stupid is Stupid and all three cross racial, religious, cultural and political lines" :)

Commenter

YaThinkN

Location

Doonan

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:08AM

Aside from politicians have no idea what is actually going on in their electorate, because unlike the title democratic representative might imply, they rarely consult the people they are meant to be representatives of. Instead of that I would like to bring up again that people might find it odd that these politicians, recipients of money from the public purse, may be the biggest welfare "bludgers" out there, apart from their corporate lords, whom they channel even larger public welfare to.

But to be more direct to the issue on hand. I remember in WA there was an escalating conflict between the indigenous folk of a certain area and the newly arrived African folk. Punitive measures failed, as the so often do. What did work? Reconciliation between the two groups in culture-specific rituals of making amends.

Commenter

Ashar

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:08AM

I wonder what The Lamester would have come up with had Twunter been around in December 2005?

"Good to see our wonderful, hard-working, law-abiding Cronulla youth taking a stand against these interlopers. Great day for democracy! Great day for free speech!"

Commenter

Big Willie Style

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:14AM

You fail to comprehend his brilliance.By descending into the fray he reminded both mobs of what they have in common - a justified loathing of patriarchal white-bred gits - and what they have to gain by resolving their differences and turning their vitriol off each other and back onto the twitty-twitty-twat twats.Problem sorted.Really, he's a diplomatic genius.Give that man a medal and a seat at the UNHCR.

Commenter

Quokka

Location

Sitting on the barbed wire fence

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:15AM

Just scared my workplace by LOLing maniacally at the Tom Sharpe reference you used in that piece, JB. Was it deliberate?

Commenter

Surtac

Location

still in the bunker ...

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:17AM

Have a look at Lameing's current job description "Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health "and he still has his job.

As one wealthy LNP supporter once told me in all seriousness " Poor people are just scum and should be treated as such "

He was talking about the working poor, I can only imagine what Lemming thinks of disadvantaged unemployed people.

Commenter

doug

Location

reality

Date and time

January 17, 2013, 9:34AM

This is the sort of knob who'd agree with Gump's "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get." Except of course that there's a description of each chocolate inside the lid. Lamo is not one who looks at the lid, just dives in and gobs it all down.A buffoon of exemplary order.